"Serenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noise of looms and carts and unmelodious voices reached the ear simply as an agreeable murmur, for Mrs. Linnet's house was situated quite on the outskirts of Paddiford Common; and the only sound likely to disturb the serenity of the feminine party assembled there, was the occasional buzz of intrusive wasps, apparently mistaking each lady's head for a sugar-basin. No sugar-basin was visible in Mrs. Linnet's parlour, for the time ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the sitting the President showed the gloomy and dreadful face he took care to assume for the hearing of cases where the evidence was weak. The Deputy Prosecutor stroked his chin with the feather of his pen and affected the serenity of a conscience at ease. The Clerk read the act of accusation; it was the hollowest sham the Court had ever heard ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... tried to pacify him, while his father, who had strolled away with Mr. Clifford, speedily returned. The grandfather looked down commiseratingly on the sobbing little companion of his earlier morning walk, and soon brought, not merely serenity, but joy unbounded, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... individuals. In pursuit of these visionary aims the few short years of life have been frittered away: wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured out in torrents: the natural affections have been stifled; and the cheerful serenity of reason has been exchanged for ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... take the Air in one of the most beautiful Evenings this Season has produced, as I was admiring the Serenity of the Sky, the lively Colours of the Fields, and the Variety of the Landskip every Way around me, my Eyes were suddenly called off from these inanimate Objects by a little party of Horsemen I saw passing the Road. The greater Part of them escaped my particular ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Brimberly bowed and bustled out, but very soon bustled in again; and now, as he stooped, menial-like, to ply the coal tongs, though his domelike brow preserved all its wonted serenity, no words could possibly express all the mute rebellion of ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... serenity on her face; she even smiled a little. A sort of vague gaiety came over her, such as comes to one who has watched long in agony and suspense by the bed of a sick person and the person is dead. Nancy drew the little window curtain aside, stooped down, and looked out and said, "'Happy ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Many painters were almost saints; only thus could they reflect celestial beauty in the faces of their madonnas. And poor Mariano strove to be ideal, to catch a little of that beatific serenity ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... friends and acquaintance, distinguished by rank, fashion and genius, a literary fame, various, elegant and still increasing, colloquial talents rarely to be found[616], and with all these means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be addressed fortunate senex![617] I know not to whom, in any age, that expression could with propriety have been used. Long may he live to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... falls in spring, the serenity of the atmosphere, the perfumed air of Andalusia, the innumerable flowers thrown along the line of the procession, the balconies splendidly adorned, and full of beautiful women dressed in the highest state of luxury, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... expression. But, as the wind clears the heaven, passion eventually tranquillises the soul. The tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the flitting memories, the scudding thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity succeeded, a sense of beauty and of joy, and ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... building is of a peculiar, affected, ultra-modern note, the general scheme of decoration inside as well as outside compels much praise. The general feeling of refinement, of serenity, that so strongly characterizes the interior is due to the able work of Hermann Rosse, a capable decorator-painter, who designed and ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... Maternus, trying to bamboozle us with your everlasting serenity. We decline to be fooled any longer. Somehow, by sorcery or magic, you infused into us the greatest enthusiasm for your crazy project. You've dragged us over the Alps and into these Apennines. On the way we've talked matters over among ourselves. The nearer we get ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance Madame Campan had already remarked. "I have sold it to the Sultan at Constantinople, for his ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... source lies in a foreign land—a solitary Panamanian policeman in the familiar Arctic uniform enticed us toward the little thatched office, and house, and swinging hammock of the alcalde to register our names, and our business had we had any. So deep-rooted was the serenity of the place that even when "Dusty," in all Zone innocence, addressed the white-haired little mulatto as "hombre" he lost neither his dignity ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... the shaft of a cart with his back against a rick, listened to this narration with an air of dreamy abstraction, but Adam's quick eyes noticed that despite the unruffled serenity of his brow, his chin seemed rather more ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... breakfast with her and when I was about to get into my saddle at the door I gave her a hug and, as she tenderly patted my cheek, a smile lighted her countenance so that it seemed to shine upon me. I have never forgotten its serenity and sweetness. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... is walking along the Bowery. His step is light and easy, and an air pervades him betokening peace and serenity of mind. In one hand he carries a short rattan stick, which he twirls in his fingers carelessly. His little black eyes travel further and faster than his legs, and rove up and down and across the Bowery ceaselessly. He stops in front of a building devoted, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... a possibility of her becoming my step-mother, I have observed her with attention; she seems to me to be a remarkable woman, whose moral qualities I am not able to determine with exactitude. There is about her an air of calmness and serenity that may come either from coldness of heart and spirit, with great self-control and power of calculating effects, accompanied by little or no sensibility, or that may, on the other hand, proceed from the tranquillity of her conscience and the purity of ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... "black pigs" too, know them well; but they are quite beneath contempt; and nothing on earth would induce me to cross the bright blue of my serenity. I have a great notion of being the master of my own happiness, and not suffering it to be contingent on the manners and conduct ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Miss More's quiet serenity was not at all disturbed by what was happening, for it could hardly be supposed that she was ignorant of the general attack on Mr. Van Torp, though he did not leave the papers lying about, where little Ida's quick eyes might fall on a marked passage. The housekeeper ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... enjoyed hunting and trapping together during the previous winter. Apparently neither had felt it any hardship that for months they had been shut off entirely from all companionship with their kind. Nature is good to these lone men of the mountains. She gives them happiness and serenity in her arms, steeps them in lore of all manner of wild things, and makes them simple and honest of heart as a child. But for what she gives she exacts an awful price, for she cuts from their hearts the dearest ties of the race. In all those little cabins scattered along the slopes ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... dark passions, conflicting feeling, clashing aims, and black, black crimes of men should mar the serenity and peace which ought to maintain an ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... his writings is the phrase: "The spring is at last appearing and the leaves are beginning to sprout." Washington, on the other hand, brooded over the mysteries of life. He pictured to himself the serenity of a calm old age and always dared to look death squarely in the face. He was sensitive to human passion and he felt the wonder of nature in all her ways, her bounteous response in growth to the skill of man, the delight ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... to call in credits. The Wall Street* group turned the stock market into a maelstrom where the values of all the land crumbled away almost to nothingness. And out of all the rack and ruin rose the form of the nascent Oligarchy, imperturbable, indifferent, and sure. Its serenity and certitude was terrifying. Not only did it use its own vast power, but it used all the power of the United States Treasury ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... compulsion, and constriction under which so much of life must be lived. Whatever happens, the truly devout man has no fears or qualms. He has attained equanimity; the Lord is his shepherd; he shall not want. There is a serenity experienced by the genuinely faithful that the faithless may well envy. God is the believer's eternal watcher; a wise and merciful Providence, his ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and, standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost protectingly—quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could feel her ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... and Raeburn, who was standing in front of him, leaning against the wood-work of the open window, looked unhappily at the face and form of his friend. In youth that face had possessed a Greek serenity and blitheness, dependent perhaps on its clear aquiline feature, the steady transparent eyes—coeli lucida templa—the fresh fairness of the complexion, and the boyish brow under its arch of pale brown hair. And to stronger men there had always been something peculiarly winning in the fragile ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... past hostilities or feed the sources of future irritation. He owed much to the singular moderation and evenness of his temper; and his debt to Anaxagoras must have been indeed great, if the lessons of that preacher of those cardinal virtues of the intellect, serenity and order, had assisted to form the rarest of all unions—a genius the most fervid, with passions ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the lady justice, she had disliked Mr. Calvert just as heartily and could never be got to believe that he was anything but a most unintelligent and uninteresting young man, convinced that his taciturnity and unruffled serenity before her charms were ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... day there came knocking at the widow's door—a young man. Winter days, when the ice of January is refrozen by the wind of February, are very cold at Saratoga Springs. In these days there was not often much to disturb the serenity of Mrs. Bell's house; but on the day in question there came knocking at ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the great house could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grand generous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airs and splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highest point had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-in excavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which we might so easily fail to hit after all, we saw ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... face grew even darker. "I know you, Drake. And I know why you're here. Tomorrow is the date for the Coronation of His Serenity, ...
— Heist Job on Thizar • Gordon Randall Garrett
... with the winds and waves of emotion, emerged into the quiet stream of a certain high reasonableness, she presented her most graceful aspect; she had a tone of softness and sympathy, a gentle dignity, a serenity of wisdom, which sealed the appreciation of those who knew her well enough to like her, and which always impressed Verena as something almost august. Such moods, however, were not often revealed to the public at large; they belonged to Miss Chancellor's ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... day he had gone to its cool, calm shelter, after spending an hour with Elizabeth. Their conversation had been in heaven, and specially of the early dead and blessed, who went in the serenity of the morning; whose love for God had known no treachery, and who took the hand of Jesus and followed him with ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... an unaccustomed desire to be at Myrtle Forge; usually it was the contrary case, and he was escaping from the complicated civilisation of his home; but now the well-ordered house, the serenity of his room, appeared astonishingly inviting. Howat progressed rapidly past the smithy, and turned to the right, about the Furnace dam, a placid and irregular reach of water holding the reflection of the trees on a mirror still dulled ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gravity and his thought took a profounder cast than characterised it in youth. The highest topics of tragedy were naturally more congenial to him, and were certain of a surer handling when he was nearing his fortieth birthday than at an earlier age. The serenity of meditative romance was more in harmony with the fifth decade of his years than with the second or third. But no more direct or definite connection can be discerned between the progressive stages of his work and the progressive stages of his life. To seek in his ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... algebra or geometry, was enough to restore the eternally invincible spell of knowledge. And no sooner was this commanding interest touched, than the cloud of uncomfortable circumstance vanished from before the sun, and calm and serenity filled his spirit. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of this dialogue, Mr Chester had suffered nothing but his smile of unvarying serenity and politeness to appear upon his face. Sim Tappertit, who had far too good an opinion of himself to suspect that anybody could be playing upon him, thought within himself that this was something like the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... remote, almost infinite, and almost ridiculous patriarch is—who can doubt?—the only possible centre and symbol of all the rest. But it would be vain to dwell further upon this wonderful and famous chapter, except to note the extraordinary sublimity and serenity of its general tone. Browne never states in so many words what his own feelings towards the universe actually are. He speaks of everything but that; and yet, with triumphant art, he manages to convey into our minds an indelible impression ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... because I'm in this basket, because the basket's in a foul carriage which is shaking me to pieces, and because the serenity of those two ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... and dead a Figure in Comparison of these two great Men, does an Orator often make at the British Bar, holding up his Head with the most insipid Serenity, and streaking the sides of a long Wigg that reaches down to his Middle? The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the Gestures of an English Speaker; you see some of them running their Hands into their Pockets as far as ever ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... acting—that the moment had not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the little struggling passions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an echo in the far distance, like a phantom that ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... But the serenity of morning scattered the visions which circled above the heated head of the heir, and the succeeding days changed greatly his ideas of the inflexible interests ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... did not know in the morning what he would eat at midday. It was not that he was lacking in will, or energy, or feeling for his mother; it was simply that he felt no inclination for work and did not recognize the advantage of it. His whole figure suggested unruffled serenity, an innate, almost artistic passion for living carelessly, never with his sleeves tucked up. When Savka's young, healthy body had a physical craving for muscular work, the young man abandoned himself completely for a brief interval to some free but nonsensical pursuit, such as sharpening ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... there had been nothing to mar in the slightest degree its serenity and delight; indeed, our happiness had been increased on the ninth of June by the arrival of our ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... perpetual serenity and contentment, amidst the greatest poverty and domestic vexations; his resolute contempt of riches, and his magnanimous care of preserving liberty, while he refused all assistance from his friends and disciples, and avoided even the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... trussed him like a turkey cock and rolled him into his bunk. The waters roundabout gave no sign of having been apprised of the capture. No cry of surprise rang out—no call for help—no hullabaloo of pursuit. The lights of the old town twinkled in the foggy night in undisturbed serenity. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... 1801 that on reviewing his conduct he found it neither unkind nor unfair. While lamenting that Canning should thus have misunderstood his conduct, he expressed a resolve to forget the incident and a hope that their friendship might endure. Serenity such as this is the best cure to Celtic susceptibility. But other grievances were discovered, and on 12th July Canning dashed off to Frere a furious missive full of dashes and underlinings, charging Pitt with ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... some distance, and, looking round, saw a young lady on the gravel path, whose calm but bright face, coming so suddenly, literally dazzled him. She had a clear cheek blooming with exercise, rich brown hair, smooth, glossy and abundant, and a very light hazel eye, of singular beauty and serenity. She glided along, tranquil as a goddess, smote him with beauty and perfume, and left him staring after her receding figure, which was, in its way, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... before the household of Deacon Gordon regained any thing like serenity; but the business of life must go on, come what may, and in the petty detail of domestic cares, the keenness of grief is worn away, and a mournful pleasure mingles with memories of the past. It was in this case as in all others; gradually it became less painful to see everywhere ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... above mentioned, the priest who came was an Italian Jesuit, the Reverend Father G——. He held his little audience entranced with a fund of edifying stories and interesting replies to the questions asked. The calm serenity of the night, the gentle, refreshing breeze that came from a neighboring wood of pine-trees, the beautiful glitter of the flitting glow-worm, and the rich perfume wafted from the purple magnolia grandiflora—all ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... especially, the circle of acquaintances you have formed in London.' 'Blackguardedly Bucks and cursed Corinthians!' snarls my uncle, the Captain, flapping his empty sleeve at me. 'That, sirs, I deeply regret,' says I, preserving a polite serenity, 'but the match is made, and a man must needs form some circle of acquaintance when he lives in London.' 'Then,' says my honored Roman, with that lack of reasonableness peculiar to fathers, 'don't live in London, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Minister for eight lean years; and which in later life flung itself into a chivalrous conflict with current social crime and misery. Here is a detachment hardly less than that which fills the pages of the last Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon with a courage, a gaiety, a serenity that no suffering and hardship, and not even the near approach of death itself, could disturb. Here, again, Fielding consciously avows a moral purpose in his art; the merciless scorn of his insight in depicting a vicious man ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... off that extraordinary remark without any perceptible disturbance to his serenity; for he follows it with a sentimental justification of Shelley's conduct which has not a pang of conscience in it, but is silky and smooth and undulating and pious— a cake-walk with all the colored brethren ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... returned, lifting her clear eyes to him, and he marveled at the unclouded serenity in their ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... apartments of the Borgias, where the great fantasia of Penturicchio unfolds its marvellous web of history, fable, dreams, caprices and audacities; and the Galatea Room, through which is diffused an ineffable freshness, a perennial serenity of light and grace; and the room where the Hermaphrodite, that gentle monster, offspring of the loves of a nymph and a demi-god, extends his ambiguous form amidst the sparkle of polished stone—all these unfrequented abodes of Beauty ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... "One of the fields make threescore square yards, and the other only fifty-five."—Duncan's Logic, p. 8. "The happy effects of this fable is worth attending to."—Bailey's Ovid, p. x. "Yet the glorious serenity of its parting rays still linger with us."—Gould's Advocate. "Enough of its form and force are retained to render them uneasy."—Maturin's Sermons, p. 261. "The works of nature, in this respect, is extremely regular."—Dr. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a gratitude inexpressibly deep and tender. Her life as a beggar-girl, half fed, half clad, and always abused, had been so terribly sad that she could never forget it; and her present life seemed one of heavenly serenity and security ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... his supreme qualities, too, that while delighting to preserve unmodified the British spirit and traditions in his emigrant colonists, he surrounds their offspring with a subtle distinction. Some of the manly strength and courtly serenity, the truth, honour, and delicacy of the ideal Englishman and Englishwoman they reproduce; and then there is added a something caught from the warm air and the broader expanses of the South—a new impulse, a deeper tinge in the blood, a ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... beautiful light in his great hazel eyes, a sweet smile hovered round his lips. Fritz, looking at him, seemed to see something in his face which he had scarcely noted before—a depth, a serenity, a beauty quite apart from the dashing gallantry of look and bearing which was his most ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... satire, his saving humor, his avoidance of the zealot's extremes. Perhaps a not less striking figure is that of this much less known French printer, striving in the midst of petty cares and unlovely sectarian strife to maintain the stoical serenity of a Marcus Aurelius side by side with the spiritual exaltation of a Saint Paul. There are two types of great men equally worthy of admiration: those of unmixed and lifelong devotion to a single aim springing from a single source, such as Aldus Manutius, and those in whom that ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... digging in the trench, suddenly leaned back, began to cough like an old man, a little blood broke from his lips, and he crumpled together in a heap and lay quite still. I could not realize that this was the end, for his eyes were wide open and his face wore the stamp of complete serenity. Apparently he had not suffered at all. The man had been a favorite with all his fellows by reason of his good humor, and that he was now stretched out dead seemed unbelievable. I saw a great many men ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... order to wait there for the inexpressibly beautiful view of the sun rising in the east. The heavens were already streaked with red: the sun was just appearing above the horizon in full majesty, and the most perfect serenity prevailed throughout the surrounding country. When the other Hartz mountains in the south-west, towards the Worm mountains, lying under the Brocken, began to be covered by thick clouds; ascending at this moment the granite rocks called the Teufelskauzel, there ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... Telang, following an alternative explanation offered by Sankara, renders it "clear knowledge of the self." Mr. Davies renders the "serenity of one's own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Santa Barbara. To a wounded, sensitive spirit there is even a healing influence in the brightness and perfume of flowers. They smiled so sweetly at her that she could not help smiling back. The sunny days passed, one so like another that they begot serenity. The even climate, with its sunny skies, tended to inspirit as well as to invigorate. Almost every day she spent hours in driving and sailing, and as the season advanced she began to take ocean baths, which on that genial coast are suitable almost all the year round. Going thus ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... and soothing together with the sense of home security and a cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our early return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour. Polyphemus also purred ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... readers, but they are not so, rightly considered. They illustrate the wonderful mental vivacity of their venerable writer, and in this respect are useful; but still more useful in showing how cheerfully she bore the burden of her years, and with what intellectual serenity she looked ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... except by similes. The innocence of childhood, the melody of a lute or song-bird as distinguished from the music of an orchestra, the rathe tints of early dawn, cheerful light on shallow streams, the serenity of a simple and untainted nature that has never known the world—many such images occur to the mind while thinking of the sculpture of these men. To charge them with insipidity, immaturity, and monotony, would be to mistake the force of genius and ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Felicia's days; and in very truth he displayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and of the pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seeming to notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued to court the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom he had been so fond and whom he had attended until ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... pass before his eyes, and his ideas became confused; but this soon vanished, and the serenity of his bearing returned, the blood rushed back to his cheeks, and a contemptuous smile settled ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... hundred other disputes buzzed and whirled about Washington, stirring his strong temper, and exercising his sternest self-control in the untiring effort to suppress them and put them to death. "It requires," John Adams truly said, "more serenity of temper, a deeper understanding, and more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough, to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these qualities were all there, and with them an honesty of purpose and an unbending directness of character to which Anne's ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... blown hair glittered like silver wire; and her eyes too looked lighter, almost pale in their youthful limpidity. As she walked beside Archer with her long swinging gait her face wore the vacant serenity ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... great sorrow, found his kind patron suffering from a malady which speedily terminated his life. Thus was the painter once more thrown on his own resources in a city where he was a stranger; but his was not a nature to be discouraged by adversity. There was something grand in the serenity with which he spent days in examining the wondrous statues of the olden time, while a cheerless attic was his lodging, and his dinner depended on the generosity of a printseller for whom he worked occasionally, and who was not always in the humour ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... outbreak of temper. Amidst the storm of battle his soldiers saw their leader "without fear of danger or in the least hurry giving his orders with all the calmness imaginable." In the cabinet he was as cool as on the battle-field. He met with the same equable serenity the pettiness of the German princes, the phlegm of the Dutch, the ignorant opposition of his officers, the libels of his political opponents. There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by which he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabinets. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... steps, but I caught no more fish, neither did I get a rise, but I did not mind that, for I had the two beauties, and I was having a grand time too. I had caught both large fish without assistance and with a common willow pole. All that serenity was upset, however, when I heard my name called with such a roar that I came near jumping over the bank to save myself from whatever was after me, but the "What are you doing so far from camp?" came just in time to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the Commissions described in this chapter, the Country Life Commission cost the Government not one cent, but laid before the President and the country a mass of information so accurate and so vitally important as to disturb the serenity of the advocates of things as they are; and therefore it incurred the bitter opposition of the reactionaries. The report of the Country Life Commission was transmitted to Congress by me on February 9, 1909. In the accompanying message ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... he might be drifting, or what might happen next. He accepted this state of affairs with a serenity creditable to the Smallways' courage, which one might reasonably have expected to be of a more degenerate and contemptible quality altogether. His impression was that he was bound to come down somewhere, and that then, if he wasn't smashed, some one, some ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the contrary, exhibited no serenity whatever, and I found Canning and Palmerston shivering with apprehension in their frockcoats. The worst of it was that I could say nothing to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... all was serenity. Eva accepted Toni's companionship with outward gratitude, and when once Herrick was satisfied that Toni knew what she was doing, he put no obstacles in the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... out from Steinfurth an hour after him, arrived in Mannheim several hours before him; and, in spite of Kurfurst Karl Philip's welcome, testified the liveliest inquietude on that unaccountable circumstance. Beautiful Rhine-stream, thrice-beautiful trim Mannheim;—yes, all is beautiful indeed, your Serenity! But where can the Prince be? he kept ejaculating. And Karl Philip had to answer what he could. Of course the Prince may be lingering about Heidelberg, looking at the big Tun and other miracles:—"I had the pleasure to repair that world-famous Tub or Tun, as your Majesty knows; which had ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... with small delicate features, and an exquisite grace in every movement; a haughty sweetness that was perfectly indescribable. She had very beautiful teeth, which she showed liberally when she smiled, and in her graver moments her slight features wore an imperturbable serenity, as if the round world contained nothing that was really worth her attention. An animated statue, cold, polished, and pitiless! was my inward thought, as ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... noble-looking woman, my child," said the duchess, as she keenly scrutinised the fair face with great blue eyes and broad humourous mouth, which, but for an added serenity and dignity, was so very like the face of the girl who had been left behind at Ismailiah over twenty years ago, and who had journeyed into the desert with the Arabian Sheikh and had married him. "I'm not surprised your husband adores you. Could he not have come with ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... rather than the sorrows of the future, which had all her life, been characteristic of Pixie O'Shaughnessy. They realised that it was to this quality of mind, rather than to external happenings, that she owed her cheerful serenity, but this morning it was impossible not to wonder how she would view ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... seems to pervade an intellectual atmosphere of an intense but hard clearness. With Macbeth perhaps, and more decidedly in the two Roman tragedies which followed, the gloom seems to lift; and the final romances show a mellow serenity which sometimes warms into radiant sympathy, and even into a mirth almost as light-hearted as that of younger days. When we consider these facts, not as barely stated thus but as they affect us in reading ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... talked and laughed with interest and eagerness; nor was it thought, for little Amy, when at rest, wore a meditative, pensive countenance; but there was something either added or taken away, which made it appear that the serenity and carelessness of early youth had fled from her, and the air of the cares of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sweep of the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in he empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to listen. A sense of sorrow came over this mother who was a prey to the most cruel mental anguish. She thought that she could have been very happy on that splendid night, if her heart had been full of quietude and serenity. Her two daughters were married; her last task was accomplished. She ought to have nothing to do but enjoy life after her own fashioning, and be calm and satisfied. Instead of that, here were fear and dissimulation ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... "For example, your Serenity—" Marietta paused, to search her memory.— "Well, for one example, he calls roast veal a fowl. I give him roast veal for his luncheon, and he says to me, 'Marietta, this fowl has no wings.' But everyone knows, your Mercy, that veal is not a fowl. How should ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... from the Continent, as villages that lay on lines of frequent communication. So the simple life went on, and Isabel went about her business in Mrs. Carroll's still-room, and Anthony rode out with the harriers, and Sir Nicholas told his beads in his room—all with nearly as much serenity as if Scotland were ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself a real place in this community. ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... drawing, of dancing to Miss de Barral, had no idea; the minds of her medical man, of her dentist, of the servants in the house, of the tradesmen proud of having the name of de Barral on their books, were in a state of absolute serenity. Thus, that fellow, who had unexpectedly received a most alarming straight tip from somebody in the City arrived in Brighton, at about lunch-time, with something very much in the nature of a deadly bomb in his possession. But he knew better than to throw it on the public ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of him. I could not be quite certain that the person I had seen at Church Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in this particular instance, after ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... by a magistrate who is in the habit of denying indisputable facts with the fury of a pugilist who has received a personal affront, and of announcing demonstrated fallacies with the imperturbable serenity of a philosopher proclaiming the fundamental laws of human belief. His brain is entirely ridden by his will, and of all the public men in the country its official head is the one whose opinion carries with it the least intellectual weight. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... she might the better talk to us of her sons: one dead, and one wounded, and two still at the front, and the youngest not yet old enough. And while we stood there up came the father, an old farmer, with that youngest son. He had not quite the spirit of the old lady, nor her serenity; he thought that men in these days were no better than des btes froces. And in truth his philosophy—of an old tiller of the soil—was as superior to that of emperors and diplomats as his life is superior to theirs. Not very far from that little ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... 9th Dr. Stebbins stood modestly but resolutely in the pulpit so sanctified by the memory of King. Few men have faced sharper trials and met them with more serenity and apparent lack of consciousness. It was not because of self-confidence or of failure to recognize what was before him. He knew very well what was implied in following such a man as Starr King, but he was so little ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... in sight and forecast, loses its serenity, becomes subject once more to the horror from which it had escaped, and by accepting its aids, forfeits the higher help of Faith; aspiration, however, remaining still possible, and, thereby, slow restoration; and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was blessed with a large and lovely family, the bride of his youth, until within a year past, still diffusing around her the light of her early love, and children and grandchildren awaiting his blessing. The very seclusion in which he lived was an element of peace and serenity in his latter days. He interfered with no man's schemes; he thwarted the ambition of no aspirant; in the vigor of manhood, and in the prime of his extraordinary powers, he had put the cup of rivalry and ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... ajar by the rude Seraphine, in her indignant exit. Pushing it slowly open, he beheld Amanda, with half-averted form, seated upon a chair, her head bowed, but her face wearing an expression of proud serenity mixed with grief. His first impulse was to retire; but pity, respect, admiration, and even awe, bound him to the spot, and he remained gazing till curiosity and commiseration alike combined to induce him to address a figure so incongruous with that mean ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... father whose memory was curtained by such an impenetrable veil. But now it mattered not. Had I known that the blood of kings was in my veins, it would not have wakened one throb of ambition, kindled one ray of joy. I cared not for my lineage or kindred. I would not have disturbed the serenity that seemed settling on my mother's departing spirit, by one question relative to her past life, for the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Tanqueray one evening, the evening before publication; she came secretly, while Owen was in Fleet Street. Her eyes blazed in a premature commencement of hostilities. She had come forth, Tanqueray knew, to brave it out, to show her serenity, and the coolness of her courage ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... morning, bearing his secret with him, having given no intimation, by word or look, of the struggle which his resolution cost him. Once his mother had fancied that he felt more than a friendly interest in their guest, but the absolute repose of his countenance and grave serenity of his manner during the last week of his stay dispersed all her suspicions. From a luxurious home, fond friends, and the girlish face he loved better than his life, the minister went forth to his distant post, offering in sacrifice to God, upon the altar of duty, his throbbing heart ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... soon told. After you left me I remained with old Mrs Crowder in peaceful serenity until Rooney came back from Quebec, and then I consulted with him as to the possibility of getting down here before the close of winter. Being an old nor'-wester, and an Irishman, he had his answer ready. 'Sure,' ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... tense—and her blue-gray eyes, wide open, fixed on the chaos ahead, were shining with excitement. Now and then a long curling wisp of her hair would get in her eyes and savagely she would blow it back. And her lank quiet father puffed his cigar, with his gray eyes restfully on her. "The serenity of her," he ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Rules are these: purity, serenity fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and per feet obedience to ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... remember—I love our monastery. It is so beautiful. At times it looks so pensive. I like it because it's so old. Its age gives it a solemnity, a stern serenity and detachment. ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... is on record of the death of a prisoner during his preliminary examination, it was a sufficiently rare event to disturb the warders, the clerk, and the Governor, and hinder their working with their usual serenity. At the same time, to them the important fact was not the handsome young fellow so suddenly become a corpse, but the breakage of the wrought-iron bar of the outer prison gate by the frail hands of a fine lady. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... their treasures are few, but everything is freely shown, there are no dark corners, and the spacious courts gay with flowers are full of charm. The sacred images which they contain are generally grotesque or hideous. Not often does one show a trace of the gracious serenity that marks the traditional representations of Buddha; on the other hand, they are ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... its editor, who was present, and to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. But the beauty of that midsummer morning, the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joyous renewal and promise of Nature, and, above all, the infinite serenity that thrilled through each, was not reported, as not being a part of the social lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed was done, and a life, with its possibilities and responsibilities, had passed ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
... not got over his uneasiness, but had succeeded in dissimulating it deep within him. Now he looked at his guests with serenity and good nature; only his manner was more agitated ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... while others drag out a negative existence, of no use to themselves or anyone else? Except in a few cases the answer is to be found in a state of freedom from the troubles known as "female." The well woman radiates cheerfulness and serenity, while the ailing one repels you with her despondency. It is not necessary, however, to harbor aches and pains, and the "blues," which make one a detriment to society. The use of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound has brought relief ...
— Food and Health • Anonymous
... open central space, from which the ordinary guests instinctively withdrew to leave room for them. "Is it the Princess?" people asked, and craned their necks to see. It must at least be a German Serenity—the Margravine of Pimpernikel, the Hereditary Princess of Weissnichtwo—but more beautiful and graceful than English prejudice expects German ladies to be. Ah, Italian! that explained everything—their height, their grace, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... time to alter the expression of his face for its usual grave serenity: Kitty saw the change at once, and spoke of it with her accustomed want ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... all," she said, with a serenity that made me groan inwardly. "I like it. Father always said I was a born business manager. You'll find Ashley's Mills very quiet, I'm afraid. It's a sort of charmed Sleepy Hollow. See, there's home," as we turned a maple-blazoned corner and looked from the crest of one hill across ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... theme; this was his dream, this was the proletariat expropriating the expropriators, and he told about it with shining eyes. In time past the young lord of Leesville would have answered him with insolent serenity, perhaps with a threat of machine-guns; but now he said hesitatingly that it was a large programme, and he feared it couldn't ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... efforts in raising fallen horses, getting them over breakneck places, and cheering up the disconsolate Kamchadals, and he now wrung the water out of his shirt, and squeezed his wet hair absent-mindedly into a kettle of soup, with a countenance of such beaming serenity and a laugh of such hearty good-nature that it was of no use for anybody to pretend to be cross, tired, cold, or hungry. With that sunny face irradiating the smoky atmosphere of the ruined yurt, and that laugh ringing joyously in our ears, we made ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... man, his features relapsing into their usual placid serenity. "I wish not, nor deserve, her thanks for the humble charities given. Let us seek our ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... when involuntary admiration had taken the place of anger, and unconsciously the noble serenity of Herbert's temper appeared to soothe the more irritable nature of his own. "Ay, Herbert, when we two have exchanged characters, such may be, till then I am contented to love and reverence the virtue, the gentleness I ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... serenity, the depth of which he had reason to doubt, was further disturbed by a distant clatter of hoofs. He sat up and watched the oncoming of the angriest-looking Indian that ever quirted a cayuse over a reservation. It was Bear Chief, whom he knew slightly. Seeing Ralston's saddled horse, the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... patriarch were almost as rigid as though in death: but there was a serenity in his countenance which betokened an absence of pain. There were five physicians, members of the House, present, viz.:—Drs. Newell, Fries, Edwards, Jones of Georgia, and Lord. These gentlemen were unremitting in their attentions. Drs. Lindsley and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... leave of his dear wife and children with great serenity and composure of mind; and afterwards turned himself from them, and passed into eternity, as if falling ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the University Press, where The Atlantic Monthly used to be printed. But outside of his own house Longfellow seemed to want a fit atmosphere, and I love best to think of him in his study, where he wrought at his lovely art with a serenity expressed in his smooth, regular, and scrupulously perfect handwriting. It was quite vertical, and rounded, with a slope neither to the right nor left, and at the time I knew him first, he was fond of using a soft pencil on printing paper, though commonly he wrote with a quill. Each letter ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... in no time!" What were her thoughts and feelings, when, after having spent her breath, she found her husband quietly opposed to this conclusion, words cannot tell. Her words could not; she was absolutely dumb, till he had said his say; and then, appalled by the serenity of his manner, she left indignation on one side for the present, and began to argue the matter. But Mr. Van Brunt coolly said he had promised: she might get as many help as she liked he would pay for them, and welcome; but Ellen would have to stay where she ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to meet the bunch myself," he admitted; and led the way back to Estra. The Venusian looked at him with no change of expression, although there was something very disconcerting in the precocious wisdom of his eyes. Their very kindliness and serenity gave him an appearance of superiority, such as only aggravated ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... for sundry philosophical reasons—a statement which the First Assistant tactfully smoothed to something within range of credulity by translating it that one must not lie to Americanos, because Americanos do not like it—there came a period of serenity. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... reined in his horse to watch her, and though accustomed to her beauty, he marvelled again at it. Like a sylvan goddess she stood, divinely tall, and divinely fair; her whole presence suffused with a heavenly serenity and happiness! Upon the soft earth the hoofs of his horse had not been audible, but when he came within her sight, it was wonderful to watch the transformation on her countenance. A great love, a great ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... the vitiating reminder. So true were the words of Mr. Stuart Rem: 'Half measures to purification are the most delusive of our artifices.' Fatigue and its reflections helped to be peacefuller. Their souls were mounting to a serenity above the nauseating degradation, to which the poor little ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shared the imperial throne with Lucius Verus, who also had been adopted by Pius. Marcus Aurelius reigned until his death, on March 17, 180, in almost uninterrupted conflict with rebellious provinces, and often heavily burdened with the internal troubles of Rome. But the serenity of this august mind, and his constancy to wisdom, virtue and religion, were never shaken. For magnanimity, fidelity, resignation, fortitude and mercy, he stands unrivalled by any other figure of the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... and smiled with that serenity she had come to know so well. "Not even you, though I suppose I'd about annihilate anyone else if he ever hinted at it." He chose to be didactic in tone. "No, you're not perfect; you've too much intelligence for that. Why, right now you're fighting with your brain against ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... circumstances, have raised a laugh, for he leaped up like a harlequin, with a glare of sudden amazement, and, plunging headlong away from the threatened danger, buried himself in the snow. From this he instantly emerged with an aspect similar to that of "Father Christmas," minus the good-natured serenity of that liberal-hearted personage. ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... no immediate response. He was standing at a window, looking out at the serenity of sea and sky. His forehead was drawn in thought. He knew that Von Ritz was right. Had Cara hated him, instead of merely finding herself unable to love him, he knew that the first threat of danger would arouse the ally in her, and that the suggestion of flight ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... best suited for our last haven of rest. If, in addition, she is of fair position, and is blessed with sweetness of temper, we should be delighted with her, and not trouble ourselves to search or notice any trifling deficiency. And the more so as, if her conscience is clear and pure, calmness and serenity of features can naturally ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... she isn't cantankerous. Quite selfish people never are; they just grab everything in sight, with a total serenity and regardless of any consequences. That is the reason Mrs. Brenton is such a good subject for ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... rarely, though, that any of her troubles ruffled her calm serenity. Dorothea was usually as placid as the placidest baby. She longed to be rich, and to have pretty things to wear and a handsome house to live in, but she never talked of her poverty. Instead she draped its cloven foot gracefully, and turned her back on ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... that Germany after the year 1848 returned altogether to what it was before it. Many of the leading figures of the earlier time re-appeared indeed with more or less of lustre upon the stage. Metternich though excluded from office by younger men, beamed upon Vienna with the serenity of a prophet who had lived to see most of his enemies shot and of a martyr who had returned to one of the most enviable Salons in Europe. No dynasty lost its throne, no class of the population had been struck down with proscription as were the clergy and the nobles of France fifty ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... a very severe term to use, notwithstanding that it was born of righteous indignation. It was not boldness at all: it was only the serenity of a young person who was quite unconscious that there was any thing to fear in the rather unimposing party before her. Octavia was accustomed to entering rooms full of strangers. She had spent several years of her life in hotels, where she had been ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... believe more firmly that there is a supreme goodness and an infinite pity; I love you more, I work with more ardor, I endure with more force, I forgive with all my heart, and I think of death with serenity. O great and good God! To hear once more, after death, the voice of my mother, to meet my children again, to see my Enrico once more, my Enrico, blessed and immortal, and to clasp him in an embrace which shall nevermore be loosed, nevermore, nevermore to all eternity! Oh, pray! let us ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... when I woke. I had slept, and horrified as the idea flashed upon me that she must be dead and that I had not been with her, I started up. She lay upon her bed, pale as marble, and with that calm serenity that the features assume when the cares of life no longer act upon the mind and the body rests in death. The dreadful thought bowed me down; but as I gazed upon her in fear her chest gently heaved, not with the convulsive throbs of fever, but naturally. She was asleep; and when at a sudden ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... flurried and put about; near cursing himself moreover for having helped to break up her high serenity thus. The whole thing was manifestly impossible as he told himself, outside every recognized law of Nature and sound science. Even during the mistrustful phantasy-breeding watches of the night, when reason inclines to drag anchor setting mind and soul rather wildly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... different passions, sometimes covers the face with a sudden and modest blush, sometimes enflames it with the heat of rage and fury, sometimes retires, leaving it pale with fear, and at others diffuses a calm and amiable serenity over it? All these affections are strongly imaged and distinguished in the lineaments of the face. The mask deprives the features of this energetic language, and of that life and soul, by which it is the faithful interpreter of all ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... cleared from the suspected crime; and if, before his acquittal, one might have fancied from the descriptions of his countenance that none but that of Mephistopheles in the celebrated picture of the Game of Life could equal its terrific malignity, after-accounts drew it a very Saint John's for sweet serenity of expression. What was then called sullenness now took the name of resignation, and stupidity was quiet contempt. Indeed, I began to fear that they would give him a public triumph, and invite me to make the flag with which to grace it. I confess that I would almost have voted him a procession myself, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... was extreme. Her cheeks were crimson, and she trembled like a leaf. Still her attitude was proud, generous enthusiasm glowed in her dark eyes, and her tone of voice revealed the serenity of a lofty soul ready to dare anything for a just and noble cause. This striking contrast—this struggle between girlish timidity and a lover's virgil energy, endowed her with a strange and powerful charm, which the photographer ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... out things that they never knew, and doing things in a way that they never did them! My mother boiled soap with bushes, and I will boil soap with bushes. If the wrath of God is to fall upon this land," said Tant Sannie, with the serenity of conscious virtue, "it shall not ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... darkness visible; it is rather a celestial glory than a light—an emanation that penetrates the grossest body with more subtilety than the rays of the sun penetrate the purest crystal, which rather strengthens than dazzles the sight, and diffuses through the soul a serenity which no language can express. By this ethereal essence the blessed are sustained in everlasting life; it pervades them; it is incorporated with them, as food with the mortal body; they see it, they feel it, they breathe it, and it produces in them an ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... "disassociation," as though their entire being was only thought. Some get a "floating" or "drifting" feeling, likening the experience to lying on deep clouds. Others experience a heavy, pleasant, "sinking" feeling. Still others get a feeling of "peace and serenity." Many describe the hypnotic state as being akin to the state just prior to falling asleep or like daydreaming, and they experience the same reactions. Yet, there are some who do not feel a definite change. They describe it by saying, "I just felt that I had my eyes closed. I heard ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... attempted to stand out; remonstrated much, with Kaiser and Hofrath, at Vienna, on this unheard-of proposal: but they told him it was irremediable; told him at last (one Bartenstein, a famed Aulic Official, told him), 'No Lorraine, no Archduchess, your Serenity!'—and Franz had to comply, Lorraine is gone; cunning Fleury has swallowed it whole. 'That was what he meant in picking this quarrel!' said Teutschland mournfully. Fleury was very pacific, candid in aspect to the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... amongst the poor, and not the native unwillingness of the heart to perform good actions, which excite them to deeds of violence and plunder. This night the heavens presented an appearance of unexampled serenity and soft splendour; all the constellations glowed with a steady beauteous light; there were the "sweet influences of Pleiades," the bright "bands of Orion," "Arcturus with his sons," and the infinitude of sparkling jewels in "chambers ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... head? Thus, too, though we may want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our ground, like so many defensive stone-posts, and we may defy the proudest Jehu of them all to drive over us. Thus, gentlemen, you see that Insensibility is not without its comforts; ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... which were scattered from the neighborhood of Yazoo City to Jackson and below; and Forrest's, which was united, toward Memphis, with headquarters at Como. General Polk seemed to have no suspicion of our intentions to disturb his serenity. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... poets can) the divine fire that burned fitfully through that meaner and more sordid fuel,—he still traced in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire Necessity the hand of the young giant who had built up the stately verse of Rowley. But alas! how different from that "mighty line." How all serenity and joy had fled from these later exercises of art degraded into journey-work! Then rapidly came on the catastrophe,—the closed doors, the poison, the suicide, the manuscripts torn by the hands of despairing wrath, and strewed round the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of spiteful imbecility. Such is the self-complacency of the old Tory hag, that in her wildest moments would bite excessively,—if she only had teeth. She has, however, in the very simplicity of her smirking, let out the whole secret—has, in the sweet serenity of her satisfaction, revealed the selfishness, the wickedness of her creed. Toryism believes only in the well-dressed and the well-to-do. Purple and fine linen are the instrumental parts of her religion. She subscribes, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... loose in her hand, and as she bent to catch the waning light, an open newspaper, which she had laid carelessly on the seat beside her, was lifted by a transient gust of wind and tossed almost over her horse's head. No horse, of whatever serenity, can be thus treated without resentment. He jerked the reins from her heedless hands, made a sharp turn to avoid the white, wavering, inconsequent thing at his feet, a wheel caught in a neighboring boulder, and Cynthia was spilled out ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... of touch, and smell, and hearing. And yet—-no. I believe I have used the wrong word. It would be rapture, belike, in a Devon coomb, or on a Hampshire hill-top. Here it is hardly articulate or sprightly enough for rapture. Rather, I should say, it is the perfection of pellucid serenity. It lacks the full-throated eternal youthfulness of dawn in the English countryside; but, for calmly exquisite serenity, it is matchless. To my mind it is grateful as cold water is to a heated, tired body. It smooths out ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... COLDWELL SPRING, And bid his inmost caverns ring; Loud thund'ring on the giddy crew, "My stream was never meant for you." But ye, to nobler feelings born, Who sense and nature dare not scorn., Glide gaily on, and ye shall find The blest serenity of mind That springs from silence; or shall raise The hand, the eye, the voice of praise. Live then, sweet stream! and henceforth be The darling of posterity; Lov'd for thyself, for ever dear, Like beauty's smile and virtue's tear, Till time his striding race give ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... Patty pale auburn, was wound once around her fine head and made to stand a little as it went across the front. It was a simple, easy, unconscious fashion of her own, quite different from anything done by other women in her time and place, and it just suited her dignity and serenity. It looked like a coronet, but it was the way she carried her head that gave you the fancy, there was such spirit and pride in the poise of it on the long graceful neck. Her eyes were as clear as mountain pools shaded by rushes, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... feeling of surprise or wonder. He felt only a great serenity, and an absolute safety. He asked no questions, felt no desire to ask any. There had been another young man once, who had met this same One in a like headlong career, planned by his own strong right hand, and he had ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the operation of a rough and violent hand they will presently disappear and be lost forever. In our conduct with these unfortunate females, kindness, gentleness, and true humility ought ever to be united with serenity and firmness. Nor will it be safe ever to descend, in our intercourse with them, to familiarity, for there is a dignity in the Christian character which demands, and will obtain, respect; and which ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... mother and sisters hung about him as they always had done, and protected him in some measure from the cold serenity of the vicar. To his father he said little on the subject, and his father said as little to him. They talked, indeed, by the hour as to the future; and Arthur, in spite of his having resolved not to do so, told the whole story ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... She least of all could have answered: she did not analyze. Each day was full and joyous. She was being carried forward on a shining tide of happiness, and yet its motion was so even, quiet, and strong that there was nothing to disturb her maidenly serenity. If Webb had been any one but Webb, and if she had been in the habit of regarding all men as possible admirers, she would have understood herself long before this. If she had been brought up with brothers in her own home she would have known that she welcomed this quiet brother with a gladness ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe |
